


Ivory Black

by Luspiel



Series: Harry Potter and Jazz [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Study, Coping Mechanisms, Gen, I honestly love Regulus, I'm Bad At Tagging, Ivory Black, Kinda, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), One Shot, POV Regulus Black, Painting, Really Everybody is just mentioned, Regulus Black Feels, Regulus Black-centric, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:53:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23069536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luspiel/pseuds/Luspiel
Summary: Regulus sneaks off into the Welsh countryside after his 17th birthday armed with nothing but a muggle record player and a bag of niffler bones. He had some business to handle.
Relationships: Regulus Black and Severus Snape(mentioned), Regulus Black and Sirius Black (mentioned)
Series: Harry Potter and Jazz [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1591132
Kudos: 24





	Ivory Black

**Author's Note:**

> Back at it again for round three! I’m just burning through one-shots. I hate myself.

After meandering into the Welsh countryside with nothing but a muggle record player and a bag of niffler bones, Regulus Black finds himself in a mostly unused cottage in Brecon owned by the Black Family. For what? one may ask. The answer, true and simple, was that Regulus was returning to his long lost coping mechanism after a painful six month stint. 

First, the youngest Black raids the cellar for anything drinkable before cloistering himself in the cottage’s drawing room. He lights several candles, locks the door, and spreads his work out on the floor. A snap and the record player springs to life another and a glass is filled with white wine. He watches the flame dance between his index finger and thumb before burning the chiseled tibia bone of one unlucky niffler until it blackened. 

He held the smoking ivory black aloft like shimmering gold and admired it for a moment. Just a moment, he didn’t want to lose his nerve. He began to draw the faintest lines going over them at least six times. Very slowly the outline of a person began to form. It was a boy and his easel, alone and content with a million mysteries weaving like old, cobbled roads to paint. Then, seemingly out of nowhere another person appears. They hover at the edge of the frame but somehow grab your attention still. They were out of place in the solemn drawing and ominous dusk. They watched the boy and his easel with an almost jovial patience. 

Bit by bit, layer by layer Regulus made the characters move. He made the boy paint a vase of edelweiss flowers and he made the hovering character peruse the rest of the room in long graceful strides. There was nothing in the room but the light of the setting sun spilling in from the window and when the nomad passed by the window they stopped and winked at the viewer. The boy painted on—oblivious. Finally, the other character, which was more than obviously a boy at this point, stood behind the young painter. He placed a hand on his shoulder and the boy looked up smiling. 

Such was the golden bits of Regulus’s childhood. Moments caught in his brain like a skipping record. Moments that have all but faded away. A year ago Regulus would’ve never drawn this. He took a deep sip of his wine and let the melancholy notes of the music wash over him. He was 17, an adult. He wanted to be more than just a name. He wanted to be heard. He didn’t quite hope to be heard like Sirius was, loud and commanding of your attention, but perhaps more like white wine. A subtle and inescapable force that one knew the potency of. Yes, Regulus wanted to be loud like white wine. 

He was 17 and therefore crazy. Holding his box of mad things at arms length. He could feel it seeping into his bones like sickness, scarring him so that even his laugh sounded broken. A broken record shatters like glass and no matter how much spellotape you use it won’t ever play the same tune. He wondered if that’s how he sounded to others. Others who had witnessed him fight with his past. 

Regulus wanted freedom. He wanted to feel the sun kiss his back and turn slowly in a garden. And just breathe. Regulus wanted to breathe and let the air fill his lungs and expand. Let the air travel through his blood and every organ and every muscle. He wanted to taste oxygen and nitrogen, and he wanted it now. He wanted to skive off this throne he had been forced to uphold. And when he was finally released from the weight of being heir, he wanted to hear his bones crackle and pop as he finally stood up straight.

Regulus wanted. He wanted so much. And that’s what made him crazy. Crazier than he had ever been at 12 when he befriended half-bloods like Severus Snape. Crazier than he had been at 13 when he had tried and failed to make an executive decision about his own life. Crazier than he had been at 16 when he became a Death Eater. Regulus had never been so selfish, so desirous before. He had never wanted anything this badly before. He supposed that Sirius felt like this daily. 

Regulus wasn’t burning with passion or chivalrous duty, but he had a resolve. He was anchored by an objective, a goal. Regulus was going to be the end of Voldemort. Even indirectly, he would be satisfied if he was able to turn the tides of the fight. 

If there was one thing Regulus had learned from being launched from the rigidity of the Black Family straight into the treachery of the Death Eaters, it was that souls take and tear. People were greedy and blind and they couldn’t see exactly when a soul had begun to deteriorate beyond mending. He was far beyond magical healing, so much so that a cheering charm just might drive him crazy. He supposed even then he would like it better that way. At least then, there would be nothing to hide from the megalomaniac he had made his master. 

But, there was also loose ends he had yet to tie up. He contemplated the constantly altering painting. With a stroke of that same desire, he added in a litter of rabbits sleeping beneath the painter’s stool. There was a vixen and a gray fox ever trailing behind the wandering boy. There was a raven perched on the dusk lit window sill preening quietly. A fluffy black Norwegian Forest cat eyed a snake dubiously peeking out from under a door left ajar. Her eyes forever oscillating between the sinister creature and the party of strolling beings. 

Yes, this was an accurate representation for such a room of memories. A room once filled with nothing had become a gallery of the most intriguing kind. If he knew more intricate spells to make semi-sentient portraits, then he would give each being a personality and allow them to come and go as they please, but seeing as this was not so, Regulus was content to leave the portrait exactly as it was. Where do vanished things go indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> Ivory Black is both in reference to the song by Oliver Riot and also burnt ivory or bone used to draw. A lot of the references pertain to a story I still have in the works called The Rabbit Boy. I hope to have it up after making some headway with Fantasm. 
> 
> I love writing about Regulus and will continue to do so. He was the second character in the Harry Potter series that I felt any real connection to (the first being Remus Lupin). I suppose that’s what makes J.K. Rowling’s series truly great, any reader can come and find themselves reflected in any of the main or wonderfully detailed side characters. You probably don’t care about that, but I wanted to right it anyway :)


End file.
